The turfed and terraced walks among those conservatories are indescribably lovely, and the whole place to-day was vocal with innumerable birds.  Picturesque little cottages and arbours are to be found in unexpected nooks all through the woodlands, each commanding some green vista of forest aisles, or some wide view of hill and champaign, enlivened by the winding river.  From one of those to-day we looked out over a landscape to which Turner alone or Claude could have done justice, the river, spanned by a fine bridge, in the middle distance, and all the region wooded as in the days of which Edmund Spenser sings, when Ireland

                      “Flourished in fame,
    Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest
    Of all that bears the British Islands’ name.”

Over the whole place broods an indefinable charm.  You feel that this was the home at once and the work of a refined and thoughtful spirit.  And so indeed it was.  Here for the greater part of the current century the owner lived, making the development of the estate and of this demesne his constant care and chief pleasure.  And here still lives his widow, with whom we took tea in a stately quiet drawing-room.  Lady Louisa Tighe was in Brussels with her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, on the eve of Waterloo.  She was a child then of ten years old, and her mother bade them bring her down into the historic ball-room before the Duke of Wellington left it.  The duke took up his sword.  “Let Louisa buckle it for you,” said her mother, and when the little girl had girded it on, the great captain stooped, took her up in his arms, and kissed her.  “One never knows what may happen, child,” he said good-naturedly; and taking his small gold watch out of his fob, he bade her keep it for him.

She keeps it still.  For more than sixty years it has measured out in this beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works and gracious usefulness.  To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in the people and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, this charming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years in her carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minute and most interesting accounts of the local industries which flourish here mainly through her sympathetic and intelligent supervision.  We seemed to be in another world from the Ireland of Chicago or Westminster!

Mr. Seigne drove me back here by a most picturesque road leading along the banks of the Nore, quite overhung with trees, which in places dip their branches almost into the swift deep stream.  “This is the favourite drive of all the lovers hereabouts,” he said, “and there is a spice of danger in it which makes it more romantic.  Once, not very long ago, a couple of young people, too absorbed in their love-making to watch their horse, drove off the bank.  Luckily for them they fell into the branches of one of these overhanging trees, while the horse and car went plunging into the water.  There they swung, holding each other hand in hand, making a pretty and pathetic tableau, till their cries brought some anglers in a boat on the river to the rescue.”